Monthly Archives: September 2014

Sep 19

Game 154, 2014

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Dodgers at Cubs, 11:20AM PT, TV: SPNLA

Clayton Kershaw has won five straight games and is trying to win his 20th game of the season. He’s 19-3 with a 1.70 ERA. He’ll face old friend Edwin Jackson, who’s coming off the DL, where he was nursing a right lat strain. Before he got hurt he was 6-14 with a 6.09 ERA.

Believe it or not, Jackson, who got his first start with the Dodgers back in 2003 and made it a memorable one, turned 31 years old 10 days ago and has been pitching in the major leagues for 12 years with a lifetime record of 84-103 for mostly bad teams.

Lineup when available.

Sep 18

Game 153, 2014

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Dodgers at Cubs, 5:05PM PT, TV: SPNLA

Greinke, save us!

Okay, that’s a little heavy on the hyperbole. Nonetheless, the Dodgers’ pitching needs to improve over its results in the last two games, and the only one who can do it better than Zack is Clayton Kershaw, who pitches tomorrow. Greinke is 15-8 with a 2.64 ERA on the season, 4-2 with a 3.92 ERA in six career starts against the Cubbies.

The Cubs send Tsuyoshi Wada to the mound. Wada was 4-3 with a 3.34 ERA in his first 11 Major League starts but has struggled in his last two, going 3 1/3 and 4 1/3 innings. Those two outings ballooned his ERA; it had been 2.79 before the Pirates whacked him around twice. He pitched against the Dodgers back on August 2, going 5 2/3 innings, giving up six hits and two runs and striking out six in a game the Dodgers won on a Hanley Ramirez walk-off HR in the twelfth inning.

Speaking of Ramirez, the Dodgers “hope” to have him back for this series.

The Giants are off today. With a win the Dodgers would be up 2 1/2 games in the NL West.

Lineup when available.

Sep 17

Game 152, 2014

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Dodgers at Rockies, 12:10PM PT, TV: SPNLA

Carlos Frias makes his second start for the Dodgers after being called up from Albuquerque for a second time this season on September 2. His first start was on September 3, when he pitched six innings of 3-hit ball in a game the Dodgers eventually lost to the Nationals in 14 innings. He’s 0-0 with a 3.91 ERA. His opponent will be Jorge De La Rosa, who’s 13-11 with a 4.28 ERA. Pitching at Coors Field, though, De La Rosa is 44-14 in his career.

Lineup when available.

Update: Well, in light of that eight-run disaster of a first inning, we’d better hope the Diamondbacks beat the Giants this afternoon.

Sep 16

Game 151, 2014

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Dodgers at Rockies, 5:40PM PT, TV: SPNLA

Dan Haren goes for the Dodgers. He’s 3-0 with a 0.69 ERA in his last four starts and 13-10 with a 3.99 ERA for the season. After that mid-season slump he’s seemingly reduced the number of sinkers he’s thrown by 12 percent, says one statistical outfit, and that may have helped the turnaround. He’ll face Tyler Matzek, a rookie whose 5-10 and 4.23 ERA look bad, but may be misleading. In his last four starts he’s given up just four earned runs, including a three-hit shutout against the Padres. He’s 3-1 over those games. The loss was a four-hit 6 1/3 inning performance in which he gave up two runs but got no run support.

In other news, Ryu’s shoulder MRI on Monday showed no damage. He got a cortisone shot and will meet the team in Chicago. He’ll miss his next scheduled start but he’ll throw a little in Chicago and see how the shoulder feels.

Nobody on the Dodgers’ side is explaining what the cause of the mild flareup of tempers between Matt Kemp and Yasiel Puig was during last night’s game. The press and we bloggers have therefore been free to speculate, as Steve Dilbeck of the Times notes and sneers at.

Via Twitter: “The Dodgers select the contract of LHP Daniel Coulombe from Double-A. RHP Stephen Fife was recalled from Triple-A and placed on 60-day DL.”

Lineup:

Sep 15

Game 150, 2014

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Dodgers at Rockies, 5:40PM PT, TV: SPNLA

Roberto Hernandez will start for the Dodgers, hoping he can get his groove back. In his last four starts he’s 1-3 with a 6.38 ERA. The Rockies counter with Christian Bergman, who’ll make his eighth big league start. He’s 2-3 with a 4.89 ERA, but his last two starts have been quality ones.

It’s looking like Carlos Frias will make the Wednesday start against the Rockies in place of Hyun-Jin Ryu. Ryu’s having an MRI today, and that result may determine when or if he pitches again this season. With that in doubt, Don Mattingly says it’s likely the Dodgers will add a pitcher to the roster.

In good news for Los Angeles Dodgers fans who want to see the team on TV, the last six games of the season will be shown on an independent station. Time Warner

said Monday that it has reached a deal with KDOC, which is carried by every cable, satellite and telco provider in Southern California and can be received over the air with an antenna.

[snip]

Time Warner Cable chief operating officer Dinni Jain says the company will continue to work on long-term agreements with other providers during the offseason to carry SportsNet LA, which televises Dodgers games.

Uh-huh. If you couldn’t get a deal done during the season while the games were being played, why do you think you’ll be able to when there’s no product on your network that fans desperately want to see?

Lineup:

Sep 15

Sorry for the comment confusion

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Yesterday I upgraded WordPress (the publishing system for the blog) to version 4.0. Then I tried to access the comments and got an alarm saying the comment database needed to be upgraded, with no alternative but to click OK. I did, and Disqus (the commenting system) went sideways.

With a little bit of angst and a lot of frustration, I got it to work first thing this morning. We seem to have lost one comment on the Pooh and Piglet image post from John_from_Aus, but since that was asking about the commenting system, I think we can get along without it.

Sep 14

Game 149, 2014

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Dodgers at Giants, 1:05PM PT, TV: SPNLA, CSN-BA

To celebrate the 200th anniversary of Francis Scott Key’s most famous composition, there will be special events honoring the National Anthem before today’s games. In Baltimore (site of Ft. McHenry, class, had you forgotten?) there will be a special program, and in other ballparks the video montage PBS has been using to promote its production Star-Spangled Banner: The Bicentennial of our National Anthem will be shown.

One hopes the Dodgers didn’t wear out their bats in yesterday’s 17-run explosion.

Clayton Kershaw goes after win number 19 this afternoon at AT&T Park. There’s not much left to say about what he’s done this season, except that his hitting has fallen off. He’s hitting just .161 this year with 19 strikeouts in 56 at-bats after hitting .182 last year, .207 in 2012 and .225 in 2011. His ERA has, unbelievably, also dropped from last year. In 33 games and 236 innings last season Kershaw’s ERA was 1.83. This season over 24 games and 177 innings it’s 1.67.

His opponent will be Yusmeiro Petit, a 30-year-old right-hander who first came to the big leagues in 2006 with the Marlins. He’s bounced between the minors and majors with two more teams since then, going 19-24 overall. Earlier this season he set a major league record by retiring 46 consecutive batters before allowing one to reach base. In his last outing he threw 84 pitches in a complete game win over the D-Backs.

Lineup:

Sep 13

Game 148, 2014

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Dodgers at Giants, 6:05PM PT, TV: SPNLA, CSN-BA

Zack Greinke brings his 14-8, 2.73 ERA to the game. His opponent will be Tim Hudson, who’s 9-10 with a 3.12 ERA. Hudson is 214-121 with a 3.43 ERA in a long and distinguished career. He’s hungry for postseason, not having played there since 2010 with the Braves. Greinke is 120-90 in his career with a 3.56 ERA.

If the Giants win the two teams are tied for first in the NL West. If the Dodgers win they’ve got a 2-game lead.

Lineup when available.